


Sentimental Virtue

by angeloncewas



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Niki | Nihachu, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Eret Needs A Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Eret-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Flashbacks, Gen, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Guilt, Multiple Pronouns for Eret (Video Blogging RPF), Regret, but she's only there for a little, i took canon and warped it a bit?, it still fits though, no beta we die like squeeks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28670715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloncewas/pseuds/angeloncewas
Summary: Everything in Eret's life starts and ends with L'manberg, from the castle they live in to the company they keep. Though the country has seen its final moments, Eret fully intends to continue all that's been set in motion.-“Did Fundy like Alivebur?”Over the hush of the wreckage and the sizzle of the rain against Ghostbur’s body, Eret manages a quiet laugh.“He loved you.”
Relationships: Eret & Floris | Fundy, Eret & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 159





	Sentimental Virtue

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "doomsday," January 6th, ahead :)

Sometimes Eret can hear them screaming.

It’s not really them, not anymore. Wilbur’s otherworldly spirit could never muster up that much energy and Fundy’s voice has deepened since, but it's their L’manberg uniforms he sees burn in his nightmares. It’s the fear in Tommy’s usually careless stature and the way Tubbo doesn’t scream at all. 

It’s the little things that haunt Eret.

“You were right,” Niki tells him.

She’s wearing armor, her smile a feral glow under the street lights. Her legs swing and their diamond casing clicks against the brick wall of her flower shop, perched on its ledge with her back to the glass.

They say war changes people, but he’d somehow always thought that Niki would make it through okay.

“About what?”

“L’manberg. All of it. You were the first one to realize... it was never meant to be.”

Eret knows he’ll go down in the history books for that sentence if nothing else, uttered as the final control room was breached and he resigned himself to a coward’s fate; locked behind a wall so his own blood wouldn’t mix in with that of his former allies.

Upon asking some questions about old L’manberg, Phil told him that those six were some of Wilbur’s last words. Eret doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to escape the knowledge that he’s inspired the sort of damage that always follows the phrase, even spoken by voices other than his own, even when he’s made sure his hands are clean.

Niki’s veneer of nonchalance slips and lands somewhere closer to bitterness as the silence between them grows thicker.

“Was it worth it?” he asks her, thinking of her harbor-side bakery and the receipt in the pocket of a dead man’s trench coat.

They’ve not once spoken about Wilbur since he died and now, the L’mantree, the symbol of all of his hopes and aspirations, is nothing more than a plot of dirt. Razed by Niki herself.

One hand fiddles with the ends of her hair, a nervous gesture Eret recognizes despite the unfamiliarity in every other aspect of her.

“Yes,” she finally replies.

The circlet of metal around Eret’s head feels like the sky stretched across his shoulders and he takes it off before sitting down beside her.

His hands tremble slightly and he involuntarily catches Niki’s eye as he tries to make them stop, pressing them so hard against the sides of the crown that in a second of clarity he wonders if it’ll crack.

She softens only slightly.

“Was it for you?”

_“A traitor-”_

_“Get out, get out!”_

_“Eret, how could you?”_

“Not even remotely.”

▪︎

“Necromancy,” Ghostbur chirps. 

They’re caught under one of the elevated houses that sit along the vaguely undefined area between what Eret considers her territory and the harsh borders of L’manberg. The rain is not a ghost’s friend, but Ghostbur seems less bothered by it than he’d usually be, pressing onward to the more-destroyed parts of the Prime Path.

 _Necromancy._ Something about the idea is inherently chilling. Maybe it’s because she’s speaking to her old friend’s incorporeal self, or because she watched Wilbur’s death with her own eyes.

She’s seen him slumped over, impaled on his father’s sword.

“There's a boy out there who needs a father,” she says, instead of voicing her thoughts.

Fundy doesn’t seem to be doing well these days, but Eret has never been sure how to breach the subject. It ties too far back into their pasts to speak about things like death and Wilbur.

Wilbur is the elephant in every room Eret walks into.

“You're right,” the ghost pauses. “Who is it?”

“Your fox boy.”

“I know Fundy!”

Eret allows herself a small smile at Ghostbur’s unfailing enthusiasm. “In your absence, I wanted to take on the parental role.”

It’d been poorly planned out and executed even worse, a desperate attempt at righting wrongs ending in yet another failure.

A rash decision, its success was probably limited at best from the beginning, but Fundy looks more tormented and alone every time Eret sees him and it aches in a way she can’t explain.

“I don't remember that.”

_A bad memory, then._

Eret tries to get them back on subject quickly. “Um, I think, if we can get you back, Fundy will have a father again.”

Ghostbur stops just where the path splits off towards L’manberg’s smoking crater and the somewhat salvageable remains of Party Island.

He looks increasingly spectral, sweater more grey than dandelion as the stone and grass from the hillside shine through his eyes.

“Did Fundy like Alivebur?”

Over the hush of the wreckage and the sizzle of the rain against Ghostbur’s body, Eret manages a quiet laugh.

“He loved you.”

* * *

Ghostbur decides that Phil must have the answers to his inquiries about being alive, so they traverse back the way they came, away from the destruction.

Eret follows without much comment, one eye kept carefully on Ghostbur. He seems unfazed by the circumstances, but his form blurs further in with the background so rapidly that Eret takes initiative and ushers them towards the museum’s front steps.

A temporary respite for the downpour; Ghostbur’s not being cautious and it’s making Eret antsy.

“He’ll meet us here,” Eret tells him, notifying Phil.

“Okay.”

Fire crackles quietly from the top of the restored van within and Ghostbur peeks into the building to see it, only to freeze.

Eret watches Ghostbur’s grin slip as his hands dig into his pockets. He pulls out the blue he’s never seen without, dropping a piece down to Eret and clenching the rest tightly.

Ghostbur looks more haunted than Eret feels by his presence.

“Hello,” Phil calls out.

The moment is shattered so quickly it’s almost as though it never happened. Ghostbur turns to face a tired-eyed Phil and all the apprehension surrounding him is immediately replaced with the same gentle, amicable air.

He begins explaining the theoretical plan for Wilbur’s resurrection. A plan that centers around revisiting the past everyone keeps locked up so tightly.

Wilbur’s death could- they’ve theorized with very little basis- be the key to his return.

“You’re the one who killed me, Phil.”

Ghostbur’s cheer is unwavering once more and Eret sighs into the cold.

 _We all killed you,_ she thinks, watching him float in figure eights around the white pillars.

At the start, they’d been criminals. People dragged from the dregs of the world; chasing a desperate dream with only stilts to stand on, propped up by Wilbur’s unbridled ambition. She’d been a follower then, first admiring, then envious.

Eret hadn’t been there for the turning point, hadn’t watched missions turn to madness. She’s heard the stories though, from Tubbo, of Wilbur pacing circles in the hideout they’d made. She’s heard the waver in Fundy’s voice as he spoke of finally presenting his spy notes to his father.

She’d watched Wilbur march into the final battle without armor, lost in L’manberg’s vision. They all had.

They all had let him go.

Wilbur’s blood isn’t on their hands, it’s interwoven into the anthem, staining the lake underneath the boardwalks pink and seeping into the grain of the wood.

L’manberg is gone now. Eret’s still not sure if it makes things better or worse, but at least this time they’re respecting his last wishes.

At least this time they won’t have learned nothing from the bombs and the carnage.

Blue specks slip from between Eret’s fingers as she grips the tuft Ghostbur has given her and sighs again.

_We all killed him._

Ghostbur waves a hand in front of Eret’s face and she blinks a couple times.

“Hi Eret! Phil left.”

“Oh, did you figure out what you need to do?”

“Yes. We’re going to kill me on the tenth.” The phrasing makes Eret’s skin prickle, but Ghostbur seems unaffected. “You can come!”

“I’ll be there,” Eret promises immediately.

She watches Ghostbur clap his hands together without sound and his eyes glitter faintly, like distant stars. “And when I build L’manberg, I’ll change the national anthem!”

_When you-_

There’s something almost amusing, if not completely tragic, about Wilbur’s incessant obsession with his country in any form. Ghostbur’s already continuing on, humming the ditty his alive counterpart composed what feels like an eternity ago.

“Wilbur, Tommy, Tubbo, _also_ Eret.”

It doesn’t fit the cadence of the song, but neither did the original, a haphazard tune with too many syllables. 

The idea of being restored as something other than the bane of the nation’s existence- or lack thereof- makes Eret feel like crying.

Wilbur’s voice is always the loudest in her memory of the room. He’d noticed that the chest was empty and had turned, gaze still open and trusting, to ask her more. Only seconds later, he was slaughtered for the first time.

Ghostbur eagerly watches Eret’s face for a reaction and she does her best to keep her expression from crumbling, swallowing the rising lump in her throat as her vision swims.

“That would mean the world to me.”

▪︎

In some worlds, kings have the divine right to rule.

Tubbo had taught them that, just after becoming president of a place no one wanted to keep nor get rid of. Sometimes the people in power are elected, sometimes there’s a line of succession, but there are also stories that chronicle figurehead monarchs, fated to be by the blessing of something more powerful than their armies.

“Dream is kind of like that,” Tubbo had laughed.

Eret hadn’t joined in. They’d remembered the frozen grin of a blindingly white mask and a soft voice, teasing in its delicacy.

_“What do you think gives you your power?”_

The throne is almost warm when Eret presses a hand down onto it, fingertips still slick with rain from having just entered the castle. It’s monetarily more valuable than any other structure, and still somehow completely worthless.

“There’s a chance for redemption yet,” Eret mutters, their voice reverberating around the empty room.

When L’manberg had been little more than an illegal van and a group of people slighted by the world at large, Eret had been naive still.

Never having experienced a death, nor seen one. Never having done much more than hunt for food and avoid monsters in the woods. A castle had seemed like an impossibility, a pipe dream from childhood made tangible by Dream’s proposition.

Betray everyone, be appointed king.

They’d done it then. Payed the price to make a deal with the devil. Earned a crown and lost everyone they’d ever known. Built a palace more show than support and in its empty husk, a poorly constructed throne. 

Eret had sat alone then, and they sit alone now.

_“...What are you saying, Dream?”_

There’s no L’manberg left to side with or betray, lest they cling to the ashes and bits of crumbling rock, coal dust and debris. It doesn’t change the fact that Eret’s the first person to have decided it didn’t deserve to stand.

They’d rather not be heralded as a pioneer when it comes with this consequence.

Eret’s laugh cuts through the air, the burn of the sunset and the stone walls their only audience.

_You fucked up._

No matter what, it’s Tommy’s voice they hear it in. From back when he was a snag on Wilbur’s coattails, a hopeful second-hand of a rebellion destined to fail.

Destiny is a weird thing. Maybe L’manberg was always doomed, or maybe there’s a world where the country emerged victorious.

Not just within the tidy borders of the revolution, but into Wilbur finding a home and settling down. Someone else taking up the mantle of president. Dream never crushing the last of it into dust.

_“I’m saying that you don't have power because of your crown, you have power because of me.”_

Kingship was only returned to Eret on someone else’s agenda, a claim of their objectivity backed by the insistence that George simply wasn’t fit to wield this sort of power.

It was Dream’s decree. The intact parts of the world are still arranged in the palm of Dream’s hand.

 _And I’m under his thumb,_ Eret acknowledges.

They want to do more than they’ve done, that’s all they’re sure of. Wilbur’s return will restore something in Fundy. Niki needs more than scars to keep her company.

Everyone’s tired of war, but Eret doesn’t have a right to be, not when they’ve stood in silence and shocked complacency next to Dream every time.

This time, Eret will be more than a puppet for someone else’s monarchy. They’ll make sure of it.

The crown, however temporary, is not for nothing.

If those rulers appointed from above were best-fit for their job, surely they’d serve the people first and foremost.

_The people deserve safety._

Shouts echo from outside the castle and Eret can’t tell if the voices are calling from across the land to its left or through the flooded community house remains. The sound is hard to focus on, far too reminiscent of everything that’s happened.

This world breeds destruction, feeds off of it like a parasite. War and bombs, murder and betrayal; they’re more common than stuff like family.

Eret is at its epicenter, alone with phantom screams and desperate hope, armed only with another plan unlikely to succeed, especially once those who wield the stronger weapons catch wind of it.

“Long live the king,” they murmur into the silence.

**Author's Note:**

> In sum:
> 
> \- I almost cried both writing and editing the scene where Eret does. Not sure how, I didn't do that well at making it emotional  
> \- Wilbur's resurrection is today. Any nerves in chat?  
> \- Remember to drink water. I am so thirsty right now  
> \- Check out my Tumblr! Same @, I post way too much


End file.
